Suggestions for engineering recruiters in Bay Area?

I hate to say it, but you might step back and wonder if the market is sending you a message here; could it be that the high cost of living and low quality of life in the Bay Area, combined with Silicon Valley investors redlining 98% of the land area of the US could lead to investment returns going to 0% or less for Silicon Valley investors?

I've got this lawn I need mowed. I keep shooting at it with my handgun, but it doesn't seem to be working. Does anyone know of any higher caliber rifles I could use to cut this grass? Greatly appreciate it.

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but the sign of a "good" recruiter would be to tell the client when their expectations about compensation are out of wack.

So, that doesn't really answer the underlying question.

I would suggest some serious outside-the-box thinking. Here are some ideas:

* Try advertising on Reddit. I think Reddit will let you target specific sub-reddits, and I don't think their advertising is very expensive anyway. Right at this moment, r/programming claims to have "588,311 readers" and "1,059 users here now". Most of these people won't be in the Bay Area, but I would bet a significant fraction are.

* Try advertising on Pandora. I don't think there's any way to target technical people specifically, but I think they may be able to geo-target pretty accurately. And compared to the cost of a recruiter, I can't imagine it would be very expensive.

* Try advertising in your local alternative weekly newspaper. Up here in Seattle that would be The Stranger. In the Bay Area I guess that would be papers like San Francisco Bay Guardian, the SF Weekly, or maybe the Metro Silicon Valley. Even if this doesn't generate much in the way of direct leads, it might generate some notoriety which in turn might benefit your other recruiting efforts. A conventional contact from a recruiter might be more effective if the contactee has already heard of your company. And again, the cost of this advertising is probably a lot cheaper than a recruiter.

OK, maybe that last idea is a little too outside the box. But it still seems like somebody should try it just to see if it works.

Tried remote yet?

I'd love to do away with my daily driving grind, but every time I emailed someone I got a "we don't really want remote developers, we just say we do; have you considered moving to SF?". Unfortunately, it's unlikely that I'll be getting the same spacious 2BR2BA (with 2 parking spots!) for $800 in SF (not to mention one block away from daycare), and I don't want my salary to be eaten by rent